How to create an account

In the How-tos section of the docs, we show the most familiar, straightforward way to use web3.storage: by setting up an account for you, the developer, that you use in your application. For an overview of the various ways web3.storage can be integrated with your application, check out the "Architecture options" concepts section.

You first need to create and register a Space you'll upload to. A Space acts as a namespace for your uploads. It is created locally and associated with a private key, and is then registered with web3.storage and associated with your email address. But don't worry about keeping track of the Space's private key! web3.storage's email authorization system allows this private key to be treated as a throwaway key.

Using the CLI

The easiest way to create and register a Space is by using the CLI

1. Install the CLI from npm using your command line: npm install -g @web3-storage/w3cli
2. Run w3 login [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) in the command line using your email address. This will send an email to your inbox with a link for validation.
3. Once you click on the validation link, you'll be taken to a webpage where you can enter your payment information and select a plan (like our Free tier).
4. Create a new Space for storing your data and register it: w3 space create

w3 space register

Separately, you can visit console.web3.storage, sign up with your email and select a plan, and create a space using the UI, but we recommend that developers get familiar with the CLI since it's a powerful tool for many things you might want to do.

The Space you create can be used to upload data using the CLI, the w3up client, or when you log into the web console. We discuss these various ways to upload in the next section, Store.